There are a million excuses for police corruption -- that they're underpaid, that they suffer stress, that their wives hate them, that they eat too many donuts, that their kids hate them, and that liberals use them as whipping boys. Read the official reports to hear the dreary recitation of why those who administer the laws never seem to obey them.

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Police body camera video shows a nurse in Salt Lake City being taken out of a hospital and handcuffed for refusing to draw blood from an unconcious patient. Police officials have apologized and say the incident is under investigation. (Sept. 1)

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Salt Lake City police apologized Friday for arresting a nurse who, citing hospital policy, refused to let officers draw blood from an unconscious crash victim. The arrest of Alex Wubbels, who was later released without charge, was captured on body camera video that the police chief said was alarming.

The incident happened July 26, when a crash victim was admitted to the University of Utah Hospital burn unit in a coma. Though the man was not a suspect in the wreck, which killed the other driver, police asked for his blood to be drawn.

Wubbels, the charge nurse in the burn unit, presented the officers with a printout of hospital policy on drawing blood and said their request did not meet the criteria. Hospital policy specified police needed either a judge's order or the patient's consent, or the patient needed to be under arrest, before obtaining a blood sample.

"I'm just trying to do what I'm supposed to do. That's all," Wubbels tells the officers, according to the body camera video.

Wubbels' attorney, Karra Porter, said Friday the university and Salt Lake City police had agreed to the policy more than a year ago and "the officers here appeared to be unaware of" it.

"There's no dispute that the blood draw policy was jointly prepared and in effect for quite some time," Porter told CNN.

Wubbels shrieks as Payne forces her out the door toward a police car. She screams for him to stop, saying, "I've done nothing wrong! I've done nothing wrong! Why is this happening? This is crazy!"

She asks out loud why the officer is "so angry."

Payne handcuffed Wubbels and placed her in the police car, where she sat for about 20 minutes, according to CNN affiliate KSL. She was later released without a charge.

Chief Mike Brown ✔ @ChiefMikeBrownStatements from Mayor Jackie Biskupski and SLCPD Chief Brown http://www.slcmayor.com/pressreleases/2 ... cal-center …10:48 AM - Sep 1, 2017Statements from Mayor Jackie Biskupski and Salt Lake City Police Department Chief Mike Brown on...Like many of you, I watched the video of police officers interacting with University of Utah Medical Center nurse Alex Wubbles for the first time through the media late yesterday. What I saw is...slcmayor.com

"I was alarmed by what I saw in the video with our officer and Ms. (Wubbels)," Salt Lake City police Chief Mike Brown said in a news conference Friday. "I am sad at the rift this has caused between law enforcement and the nurses we work so closely with."

The department opened an internal affairs investigation, he said, and Friday evening the police department said Payne and another "employee" were placed on full administrative leave as a result of a criminal investigation into the incident. The department said the second person was an officer, but did not identify that officer.

The officer's account

In a police report, Payne said that when he arrived to the hospital, Wubbels said he needed to get permission from the hospital administrators.

After more than an hour of waiting, Payne said, he called his supervisor who advised him to arrest Wubbels if she refused to let him draw a blood sample.

"I told them we wanted to blood sample to protect him, not punish him," he wrote.

An after-hours message left with the Salt Lake Police Association, the union representing officers, regarding Payne's status was not immediately returned.

Brown said the department has apologized and that its "blood draw policy" has been replaced with a new one that officers are now using.

His statement did not mention the policy that was in place at the time of Wubbels' arrest or why police would need a new one.

The crash victim

The truck-driver victim of the crash was William Gray, a reserve officer with the police department in Rigby, Idaho, the department said in a statement Friday.

He was working his regular job as a truck driver when a suspect fleeing from the Utah State Highway Patrol crossed into oncoming traffic and collided head-on with Gray's truck, Rigby police said.

The department said it learned of the incident with Wubbels on Thursday and was grateful for her actions.

"The Rigby Police Department would like to thank the nurse involved and hospital staff for standing firm, and protecting Officer Gray's rights as a patient and victim," it said. "Protecting the rights of others is truly a heroic act."

Rigby police said they hope the incident will be investigated thoroughly and "appropriate action" will be taken.

"It is important to remember that Officer Gray is the victim in this horrible event, and that at no time was he under any suspicion of wrongdoing," the statement said, adding that Gray "continues to heal."

Why nurse came forward

Since the incident, Wubbels and her attorney said they have met with the city and police department to encourage them to reeducate their officers about the policy.

But Porter said they were not encouraged by their discussions with the University of Utah police and the Department of Public Safety, which provides security for the hospital. Officers from both departments were present for the arrest and did nothing to stop it, she said.

Wubbels said the lack of "forward progress" they felt in those meetings spurred them to come forward this week with the body camera footage.

"I felt obligated to release it on behalf of anyone that's ever gone through something like this" but didn't have evidence or video, Wubbels told CNN. "Just being bullied by police for any particular reason in a health care setting."

Wubbels also said she hopes to raise awareness of the policy.

"This should never have happened and it should not happen again," she told CNN. "We have to have a conversation and a discussion."

Mayor J. Biskupski @slcmayorWhat I saw on the video last night is completely unacceptable. @ChiefMikeBrown & I apologize for these actions. http://bit.ly/2vQBIN010:33 AM - Sep 1, 2017 · Salt Lake City, UTStatements from Mayor Jackie Biskupski and Salt Lake City Police Department Chief Mike Brown on...Like many of you, I watched the video of police officers interacting with University of Utah Medical Center nurse Alex Wubbles for the first time through the media late yesterday. What I saw is...slcmayor.com

Wubbels said she received calls from the mayor and police chief to apologize and felt they were sincere.

Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski called the actions of the officers "completely unacceptable" and apologized to Wubbels.

"It was not necessary, and that's what we are here to say and we are truly apologetic," the mayor said at a news conference Friday.

CNN's Carolyn Cremen in Atlanta and Dan Simon in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.

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Nurse Alex Wubbels (right) displays video frame grabs of herself being taken into custody while her attorney, Karra Porter, looks on during an interview Friday. Wubbels was arrested after she told a police detective it was against hospital policy to conduct a blood draw from an unconscious patient without a warrant.Rick Bowmer/AP

A Utah nurse and her attorney have released video footage showing an officer roughly arresting her at University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City. They say it amounts to assault.

The video shows an officer aggressively handcuffing nurse Alex Wubbels after she refuses to allow him to draw blood from an unconscious patient.

That's after she calmly explained to him that it is against hospital policy to allow blood to be drawn without a warrant or the patient's consent, unless the patient is under arrest.

The video was released Thursday and has since gained national attention, prompting a joint news conference Friday with the city's mayor and police chief.

When asked by a reporter why this level of force was necessary, Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski was clear: "It was not necessary. That's what we're here to say. And we are truly apologetic."

The truck-driver victim of the crash was William Gray, a reserve officer with the police department in Rigby, Idaho, the department said in a statement Friday.

He was working his regular job as a truck driver when a suspect fleeing from the Utah State Highway Patrol crossed into oncoming traffic and collided head-on with Gray's truck, Rigby police said.

The department said it learned of the incident with Wubbels on Thursday and was grateful for her actions.

"The Rigby Police Department would like to thank the nurse involved and hospital staff for standing firm, and protecting Officer Gray's rights as a patient and victim," it said. "Protecting the rights of others is truly a heroic act."

Rigby police said they hope the incident will be investigated thoroughly and "appropriate action" will be taken.

"It is important to remember that Officer Gray is the victim in this horrible event, and that at no time was he under any suspicion of wrongdoing," the statement said, adding that Gray "continues to heal."

Every Cop Involved in the Arrest of This Utah Nurse for Refusing to (Illegally) Draw a Patient’s Blood Needs to Be Fired: The Supreme Court decision forbidding unwarranted blood collection is a year old.by Scott ShackfordSep. 1, 2017 12:07 pm

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Shall we ease into our Labor Day weekend with an absolutely repulsive video of a police detective abusing his authority against a completely innocent person for no real justifiable reason? Oh, why not?

Behold, Salt Lake City Police Det. Jeff Payne arresting Nurse Alex Wubbels in July for refusing to violate an unconscious—comatose, actually—man's rights by drawing his blood for the police without any sort of warrant whatsoever:

What Payne did here is patently, inescapably wrong in just about every possible way. Just one year ago the Supreme Court ruled that police must get a warrant or consent in order to draw a person's blood. It's utterly inconceivable that Payne, who is a trained phlebotomist with the police, did not know this. According to coverage from the Salt Lake Tribune, Payne acknowledged that he didn't have probable cause to get a warrant, but nevertheless insisted he had the authority to demand Wubbels draw blood.

But Payne did not have the authority to demand the blood draw and Wubbels was not "interfering" with a police investigation as they insisted at the time. Unsurprisingly, she was released later at the hospital and was not charged with any crime.

In fact, the claim that this blood draw was part of an "investigation" at all adds another layer of revulsion to Payne's behavior. The unconscious man Payne wanted blood from was not suspected of any crime and had done nothing wrong. He was, in fact, a victim of a crime.

The patient, William Gray of Idaho, was driving a semi truck in Northern Utah when he was struck head-on by a man who veered into oncoming traffic on a highway in Wellsville on July 27. That driver, who died in the crash, was fleeing from the police in a high-speed chase. Utah Highway Patrol officers were responding to calls about an erratic driver, and the man, Marco Torres, 26, led police on a chase rather than get pulled over and detained.

So Gray's terrible injuries were a consequence of a police chase that he had absolutely nothing to do with. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. According to the coverage of the arrest, Payne said that he wanted to draw blood from Gray to check for drugs in order to "protect" him in some fashion, not to punish him, and that he was ordered to go collect his blood by police in Logan. It is not made clear in any coverage what exactly the police would protecting him from by drawing his blood without his consent while he was unconscious. Payne also said it was his watch commander, Lt. James Tracy, who told him to arrest Wubbels if she refused to draw blood.

Payne has been suspended from the police's blood draw program but remains on duty. He needs to be shown the door. It doesn't matter if he was just following orders, he should have known he didn't have the authority. For that matter, Wubbels herself was just following orders. She served the hospital, which had strict guidelines for drawing blood that the police were attempting to bully her into ignoring.

Tracy needs to be shown the door, too. We don't see Tracy in the video acting the way Payne did, but it's very clear from the Tribune's coverage that the lieutenant did also insist that he had the authority to force Wubbels to draw blood, even though he most assuredly did not.

In fact, here's a longer video from Deseret News that shows toward the end what appears to be Tracy being a condescending jerk to Wubbels while she's being detained, even though he's completely in the wrong:

SATURDAY MORNING UPDATE: The Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office has launched an independent criminal investigation of the incident. The mayor and police chief have apologized to Wubbels for her treatment. Payne and an unnamed officer have been placed on administrative leave during the investigation.